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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23376175">The Hanging Man</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/maewanen/pseuds/maewanen'>maewanen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SCP Foundation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 13:53:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23376175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/maewanen/pseuds/maewanen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone has found something in the middle of somewhere. And they're not sure what to make of it - they never are.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Hanging Man</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>OFFICE OF U.N. CHIEF OF COUNCIL</p>
<p>SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS DIVISION</p>
<p> </p>
<p>LEAGUE CASE FILE:                                                 OTF4273</p>
<p>DOCUMENT NUMBER:                                             BC-304</p>
<p>TO BE FILED UNDER REFERENCE HEADINGS:           As above</p>
<p> </p>
<p>DATE:                                                                  10 OCTOBER 2003 </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Addendum: Transcript of included audio .midi file.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>[A young man is led into the interrogation room. A soft woman's voice recites that he's small, though the record on the table states that he'd graduated public school two years ago, and that he's attractive, though his features seem oddly blurred. As he sits, another interrogator asks a muffled question.] You know what my name is. I was told I wasn't under arrest. [Shuffling papers, then another muffled question; all that matters is the young man's testimony.] Yes, the information on file is all correct. I live in the Federation now, though I guess you guys already knew that. [A second official voice, asking him to sign the record and informing him that anything he said would be used by the strictures and standards set out by the League of Nations. A brief pause as he signs the forms and records.] So I guess this is about what happened when I was still in school, huh? How much do you know about it?</p>
<p>So I was pretty much a transfer in. My parents moved to the Midwest from the Federation when I was two years away from graduation. The only thing I really remember about the school was that all the hallways had baby-blue tile halfway up, about two thirds up the height of a locker. Every hallway was like that; yellowing lino, yellow lockers, and sky blue tiling. High ceilings. All the woodwork was old and dark. It was... it was just a weird place, but it was a good school district. [An indistinct question.] Nah, it didn't seem sinister or anything, it just seemed like... they tried to remodel and kinda gave up halfway through. Guess they figured the money could be spent better elsewhere. Not on the gridiron team, that's for damn sure. [Muffled laughter.]</p>
<p>Yeah, so I was in Lit that semester, down the hall from Mr Grigore. I had a nice older lady, red hair, probably came up to your shoulder. We were reading something about a bridge and mockingbirds, blue cover all done up in pastel work. Depressing, kind of. Since I was from the Federation, my English wasn't the greatest. Had a hard time reading, and speaking was hard too, since English has weird syntax that I'm not used to. I've got the hang of it now, obviously, but I had to go into a remedial sort of class so I could keep up in Lit. That was Grigore's.</p>
<p>[The question this time is distinct – the first woman's voice. "What was your first impression?"] Stuffy, I guess. My other teacher's classroom was bright, even though were were in a hall that didn't have windows in any of the classrooms. Somehow, she made it so it didn't feel quite so claustrophobic, even though all she had in there were desks and chairs and her big desk. Grigore was, like, the complete polar opposite, even down to how his room was oriented. But he had couches and beanbags all against the back wall, with his projector set up pointing to the right. [Concerned murmuring.] The air felt really close. Dead and stale. Like, he was trying to make it a hangout spot for students, trying to make it comfortable. You didn't get the 'try hard' feel that you get from a lot of teachers that have furniture in the classroom, and the air was really the only problem. You forgot about it after a few minutes, anyway. It wasn't hot, it just felt stuffy, you know? And with all the fabric and stuff, it seemed darker.</p>
<p>So I went there three times a week during fourth period to learn enough English that I wouldn't be totally screwed. ["Did you enjoy the class?"] I mean, yeah, I guess. It was school, you know? No kid actually likes school. But the kids were nice, a lot of them spoke dialects close to what I spoke, and Grigore pretty much had free reign over his curriculum. ["What sorts of things did you do in class?"] Games, a lot of the time. You know, hangman, vocab and spelling games. Matching games. Grammar groups – we'd split off into groups, teaching each other English grammar. It worked, obviously. I looked forward to his class, too, since I made friends and he made it fun. ["Were your other classes not fun?"] I didn't say that. Christ, this is turning into all sorts of cliches, isn't it? I mean, you're asking me about him, I'm telling you. I liked my other classes just fine, I had a lot of fun after I made friends and stopped being so sullen about my parents moving from my childhood home. I liked being there.</p>
<p>[There's a silence, spooling out long and uncomfortable. The interrogator clears their throat a few times. The chairs squeak as everyone shifts. The silence shifts towards expectant. "When did the, ah. The 'events' start happening?"]</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dude, a lot of my teachers were into weird New-Agey stuff. My history teacher did crystal stuff every Friday. I don't know if it was 'real' like witch stuff, but even if it was the placebo effect, we were all a lot more relaxed after playing with the crystals. Grigore liked tarot reading. Not French tarot, with cups and scepters and whatever, but one with fire and water. [Soft conversation in the background.] No, I don't know where he got it from. I tried to do some research after I graduated, tried to find that tarot again. Nothing. It doesn't exist. I haven't even -</p>
<p>[The woman speaks again. "Many of the victims have mentioned a thing called the 'hot room.' What can you tell us about it?"] Oh, man. Oh, man. Like... it wasn't a place, ma'am. It was... fuckin' a.</p>
<p>[The recording briefly shuts off. Written records indicate that a coffee break happens around this time so the subject can be calmed. A doctor is also on record as administering a sedative as the subject remained highly agitated for several minutes.]</p>
<p>I – I don't remember much. Just bits and pieces. Impressions, kinda. Like... there were eight cards. Eight, I think. Major and minor for each element. I was a sick kid, was that in the file? Really sick. Small and runty, thick coke bottle glasses. Class clown, since that was kinda the only way I could get positive attention. Shit... shit, okay. So I don't remember what was going on very clearly. It didn't happen all of a piece, you know? Shit, I can't handle this - [Sounds of movement, muffled swearing in an Aborigine tongue.] This is the kind of shit that made me into an alcoholic, you know? I didn't get this face on accident. I drew Ignis Majoris and shit, that... it burned. Melted me. I don't remember much, but I wasn't the same after it. ["Did you feel pain?"] Nah, man. No physical pain. Just – just whirling light, like those weird light shows you get in fantasy and sci fi movies and shows. Real low-budget shit. Like... like being melted like wax. I guess it was all in my head, since no one else commented on the fact I was six inches taller and a couple orders of magnitude more attractive. Went on spring vacation with Mum and Dad after that, not a comment that I looked different. ["No one commented at all?"] Not about me, not about the other kids, never. ["Other kids?"] Yeah. One for each card. Everyone was changed, I guess, though I can't remember what they were like before they drew the cards.</p>
<p>[At this point in the record, there's a few minutes of dead air. The woman asks again, "How does the 'hot room' figure into all of this?"]</p>
<p>Stubborn bastards, aren't you? I don't even really know what the hot room was. Just... Look, there weren't just eight cards, there was supposed to be nine cards, but I never actually saw the ninth. ["What was the card, could you tell us?"] Yeah. Yeah, it was the Hanged Man. [Sounds of consternation.] Nah, it wasn't the French one, with the dude hanging upside down by a foot and his hands behind the back. It was a... a dude with the noose around his neck, buried in all this flesh, like his skin had been peeled off from his head and left to flop around his neck. ["You said you'd never seen the card."] Right. Still haven't. Like, this dude was in the hot room.</p>
<p>Fuck. Okay. It's all confused impressions and it might just be a... hallucination or whatever, since none of us ever talked about it, but after I pulled Ignis, everything kind of went back to normal. We were all a little shellshocked, so things were really quiet in the room. Mr Grigore put on a movie for us to watch and I zoned out. I think I fell asleep. But the movie wasn't anything I'd ever seen before or since, and I've tried to find it, too. The Hanged Man was just on screen, lying like a corpse in an archway. Behind it, everything looked all busted up and charred, like those pictures in the history books of when constructs go apeshit and just self-destruct all over everything. ["Agony shard fallout?"] Yeah, I guess. It looked familiar, like an old ruin or something, though it didn't look like burned stone or wood. It all looked like meat. Burned meat that got frozen in time. ["And this was the hot room?"] I guess. But this guy, the Hanged Man, was lying in an arch between the messed up room and our classroom. Its head was cocked back at a super fucked up angle and it was just grinning out at us, eyes really blue and really glassy. ["What did he say?"]</p>
<p>It didn't talk to us. It talked to Mr Grigore. Kept saying about how it was the last one who'd tried to use the tarot, and that the King always became the Hanged Man. That using all the cards and then using the Hanged Man to finish it up would put Grigore in hell, too, and then it'd be free. Grigore didn't like that, started bragging about how he'd put the cards in eight different kids so he could use the Hanged Man without getting trapped. The corpse-man just started laughing, this horrible dry gurgling laugh. Corpse-fingers, you know? It sounded like dried, charred fingers with bones poking out of the tips. Said that Grigore would end up in the room soon enough. Said that they always did.</p>
<p>[The recording continues on for several more minutes, with the interrogators asking for minor details. The hot room and Hanged Man aren't brought up again, though the subject is asked to grant permission for a physical examination. He consents and the recording shuts off.]</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This SCP doesn't exist on the wiki. I don't have the time to continue with the SCP Foundation anymore, what with school and work and the whole-ass pandemic happening - yeah, I'm an essential worker, so I still have to get up every morning and go to work... So I suppose one could say this is in the spirit of things, less about any one established SCP or character.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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